Absolutely fantastic day really… mainly ‘cos Glynn is going to be moving in when Florian leaves..

Florian you see is off to Europe for 4 months.. so had to find a replacement.. Maeve and Andy are leaving to head travelling on Friday – working their way back to Ireland over the next 5 months I think it is. Hope they have an excellent trip – guess it’ll be great, taking in the North Island, then some climbing in Oz, and finally Asia.

So that means Glynn will be getting a new house, and in the interim he’ll move in here until Feb/March ish :) It’s gonna rock. Really super happy about it. Found out today that another college climbing friend John Loane will be in NZ visiting his girlfriend Maeve on the North Island and then hoping to take in a road trip on the South Island too… so hopefully if another climbing friend Domhnall is in town at the same ish maybe kinda time it could be a real trip. Course, if not, it’ll just be an excuse to take two extra weeks of holiday!! :)

Woohoo! a great day – topped off with finding out ACC is going to cover phisio to strengthen my knees (so more totally free phisio) and also doing more rolling of kayaks with Warick and Mhairi.. I’ve got no style at all at rolling.. raw power pulling me into an ungainly roll.. still, making progress.. hoping to get to do some real outdoors stuff next week… (just practice in the surf first of all!)

Friday took the day off work. Nice relaxing start.. up at 05:15 for an 05:40 pick up! Drove (well, was driven) up to the top of the South Island – to hike the Heaphy Track with Mhairi, Marcel and Johan. The Heaphy is one of the Great Walks. Personally I thought it was a good walk! the second day was great, but the first day left a bit to be desired.

At the start – on the left is Johan (Sweedish) and on the right Marcel (German).

Now, DOC says it’s 82km.. but addition says 77km. Either way, quite a hike to do in 48 hours. We started at 2pm on the Friday – and got to Saxons hut about 9pm ish that evening. Quite tired feet. The walk to Saxons was pretty much bush walking all the way – not the most exciting terrain really.

The second day though was far more interesting. There were some quite cool moss-art sculptures that I totally walked by, but one of the others pointed them out. There were loads of these things.

It’s a little scary though, here you can see Mhairis’ leg having a lucky escape from being utterly devoured by a carnivourous snail. Not actually sure if this one is carnivorous, but there are ones which are… grow up to 10cm in diameter. Which is kinda impressive! (to me)

We didn’t hear any Kiwi (one of the few places they still are)

The landscape did change and become much lusher the lower we got.. and far more interesting. The second half definitly was ‘great walk’ material.

In the middle – about 12pm we met Joe and Lachlain, two other (crazily fit) trampers from the CUTC. We swapped car keys – as the Heaphy is not a round trip, so you end up about a 4 hour drive from your car… hence the swapping. Joe and Lachlain did the entire walk (all 77km) between 5am and 9pm on Saturday. Which is kinda impressive. And they were carrying bags. Savage.

AAaaaanyway, so yes, stayed Sat evening in Heaphy hut – which was lovely, right down on the beach…

Did get to make some kinda cool shadows (and you can see the hut in the background too)

And then finally out at the other end.. it was fun all in all. I was pretty happy with how my knee held up – did tape it as per the phisios’ instructions.. and it held up well…

So yes.. a great weekend – we totally lucked out with the weather too, two days of blue skies, but it’d rained on Thursday all day, and also was starting to rain as we drove away at the far end. Rockin’

So, last night, I managed to roll a kayak.

So Sat morning (06:30) left for Kaikoura. Couple of hours later we were doing the first of three tramps.. All quite different. The first, was called Sawcut gorge. A nice little bit of canyoning.

After that, back to Kaikoura and off to a climb to Mount Fyffe hut. Really nice, just 1.5 hours walk in (DOC says 2.5). 8 person hut, but it was just Marcel Mhairi and I so quite comfortable. My knees were really in bits. I think I must have done something to them on snowcraft a while ago as they really don’t like heavy(ish) packs anymore.

Anyway, had a nice fire, and then chopped wood in the morning (always leave the place as you found it or better :)

Then it was off up Mt. Fyffe. Pretty excellent views from the top, but I was really glad we turned around after having a short wander along the ridge. It was quite icy (slipped a few times) and without crampons and ice-axes it could have been… a little dangerous. Probably not, but why risk it. That and my knees were quite sore by this stage and I didn’t fancy trying to navigate my way down an icy slope with a big drop off…

So we headed back down to Kaikoura a little earlier than expected, so had time to do a seacliff walk. Quite windy, but sure was grand.

I must say though, the people who make rock art on the beach really do have their heads screwed on. I mean can you think of a better sign to make than this one:

No, I can’t think of a better one either ;)

Wasn’t without its dangers though this walk… there was this alligator on the beach which almost got Marcel. It was a close won fight but he got away in the end.

So yes, thanks Marcel and Mhairi for an excellent weekend. Not sure if I’ll be up for the 73+ km Heaphy track at the weekend, depends on what the phisio says.. but hopefully.

Drinking until 2am (after waking up at 6am the last ages with the frickin bird dawn chorus) and then coming into work for 7:30 am so you can leave at 3:30….is a recipe for disaster.

fun night though.